Ginobili remains on a timetable that should put him back on the court at some point during the Spurs’ nine-game rodeo road trip next month. Including Monday’s 83-73 victory in Memphis, the Spurs are 10-7 with Ginobili sidelined.

The Spurs’ other injured guard, backup point T.J. Ford, is facing a later return from the torn left hamstring he suffered Jan. 10 at Milwaukee.

“He’s further away,” Popovich said. “Hamstrings are a tricky thing.”

Technically, a first: Matt Bonner picked up the first technical foul in his five-plus seasons with the Spurs early in the fourth quarter when he jogged away from an official who had called him for a foul.

“Just the heat of the moment,” said Bonner, who recalled one other technical after a scuffle with Minnesota’s Kevin Garnett in his rookie season with Toronto in 2004-05.

“I reacted poorly.”

In the postgame locker room, Tim Duncan — who has been whistled for his fair share — was already having fun with the normally even-tempered Bonner.

Would Duncan be footing the bill for Bonner’s mandatory $2,000 fine?

“Absolutely not,” the Spurs’ captain said. “He’s going to call the league, he’s going to call his player rep and do all sorts of things.”

Bonner, who finished with 15 points and five 3-pointers, at least had one up on Memphis’ Rudy Gay. Gay had more technical fouls (one) than field goals (zero).

Moments after Bonner picked up his tech, he banked in a trailing 3-pointer to break a three-minute Spurs scoring drought.

“I called it as soon as I let it go,” Bonner said.

Rudy’s donut: The Spurs held Gay, the Grizzlies’ leading scorer, to one point on 0-for-7 shooting. It was Gay’s first game without a field-goal since going 0 for 4 against the Spurs on April 16, 2007, in the penultimate game of his rookie season.

Though Spurs rookie Kawhi Leonard was the player most often assigned to Gay — who came in averaging 18.7 points — guard Tony Parker said it took a village to negate him.

“Everybody was ready, everybody was aware,” Parker said. “Help side, weak side everything was good for us.”

Thomas sent down: The Spurs assigned rookie forward Malcolm Thomas to the Austin Toros, the team’s Development League affiliate.

Thomas, 6-foot-9, had appeared in three games after being signed Jan. 11 from the D-League’s Los Angeles D-Fenders.